Can lithium work in 30 mins? Am I Bipolar?

Posted by JeffH on December 13, 2001, at 15:21:32

After a month, I finally found a pdoc at the U. of Arizona in Tucson who was willing to try opiates. Just for fun, I had been mood charting myself and discovered my depression was cycling daily from severe depression to a non-depressed state (although still had anhedonia).

Well, opiates went to the wayside temporarily when I was diagnosed Bipolar II and given a script for lithium. That night, I took the minimum dose (one capsule) and a half-hour later, I literally felt a jolt and my depression went away and has been gone now for two weeks!

I have been depressed for 33 years and have tried many medications (including lithium). Nothing else has ever worked. Why did it work now and so fast? Could the turmoil of my recent divorce turned unipolar depression into bipolar?

Anyway, tomorrow I go back to Tucson to get started on a TCA and possibly Mirapex. I still need to take care of that life-draining anhedonia.

Is there anyone else out there that is Bipolar who has been effectively treated with a mood stabilizer for depression but still has anhedonia? Is treatment different than people with unipolar depression and anhedonia?